The Internet has become an essential part of home life and provides a source of new content to a vast number of homes across America and the world. While often, the content brought into a home is considered acceptable by all members of the family, often times, content is brought in which may be considered objectionable or inappropriate for certain member(s) of the household. As a result, content filtering software and devices have been devised that provide for a way to control or limit access to such content. Unfortunately however, such software and/or devices can often be circumvented, for example, by persons with access to the filtering device physically bypassing the device or through gaining access to the administrator's password and modifying the restrictions in effect for one or more users and then changing the restrictions back after the access has occurred or modifying the file in which the improper access is logged.
In some cases, doing so will result in the administrator having no way of knowing about the bypass or modification. Moreover, for relatively computer-unsophisticated users, like some heads of households, even the means by which one is informed of attempts to access objectionable content are somewhat technical and, to avoid access by others, may require the user to use yet another different login and password. In addition, such software and/or hardware generally require active effort on the part of the administrator/head(s) of the household to investigate, even if some form of mechanism is included whereby an alert of improper access is/has been attempted.
Moreover, content filtering systems for the home are often pure software solutions that tend to slow down the system.
Although hardware-based content filters generally exist and do not tax the user's system at all or near as much as a pure software filter running on a user's computer will, hardware-based content filters are generally costly and designed for large scale business operations that typically have, or have ready access to, trained IT personnel who can set up and administer the system as part of their regular job duties. Administering such a system is typically well beyond the ken of many computer-unsophisticated users small business and/or home users.